


A Pack of Cards

by pauraque



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-14
Updated: 2004-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Who cares for you?</i> said Alice. <i>You're nothing but a pack of cards!</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pack of Cards

**Author's Note:**

> For Christy on the occasion of the Harem Secret Valentine fic exchange. Thanks to Keladry for last-minute beta, and to Maidenjedi for running the exchange.

[call a spade a spade]

He hears the shovel _chunk_ driven into the ground, and _shhhnk_ dragged out again. The dirt drops down beside his head. Rich decaying earth all around him, cold and ancient forest air. He can't keep his eyes open, and there's something on his chest, holding him down.

_chunk_

_shhhnk_

Dirt against his ear.

It takes a long time for him to realize that they're not burying him: They're burying his arm.

There's pain somewhere, but it's outside him, maybe above his head, off to the left. His eyes won't stay open.

He wakes up and it's just as cold, but not as windy. Brighter. Dust and antiseptic, and the echoing clink of ceramic on metal. The nurse is singing along with the staticky radio — "I Left my Heart in San Francisco" — but she doesn't speak English, so the words come out as a mangled soup of right vowels and wrong consonants.

His eyes fall closed, and all he can hear is the shovel and his heart.

What his heart says is that Marita will find him.

 

[a girl's best friend]

She sees herself in the silver-mirrored wall of the hotel lobby. She's sitting in an armchair that's too big and deep for her, slumped down and gripping both armrests with tense fingers. She thinks she looks like Alice at the tea party — a grave, frightened girl with neat blond hair turned up at the ends.

Her bracelet gleams in the reflection. Not the sharp glint of metal, but soft and deep like an old oil painting. Diamonds. They'll buy untraceable cash at the right pawnshop, and that will buy alternate cell phones, airline tickets under a false name, hotel rooms charged at hourly rates. Other ways of getting where she needs to be.

She wonders if he knows the freedom he's given her, or if he's simply too arrogant to care. She can still feel the dry slide of the smoker's palm over hers as he fastened the bracelet around her wrist.

She looks at her silver reflection, and forces a smile. The elevator gives a cheerful _ding!_ , as if signaling its approval, and the doors slide open.

She imagines she can already see Alex there.

 

[any club that would have me as a member]

The stark-lit men's room at East 46th Street. He reaches for the paper towel roll, and fumbles. It falls to the floor in a drop-spattered tangle, leaving him holding the end in one wet hand. He lets out a short breath of annoyance and starts to bend down for it, when he hears the single echo-click of a shoe behind him.

He stops. Straightens up slowly. Sees her in the mirror above the sink, all pale and yellow and cold, like she's a part of the room. The smoker's newest fascination — but Alex caught how unimpressed she was by the old man's Bond villain routine. He saw her leaning awkwardly on one elbow in her chair in that dark room, hanging on his every word with her head cocked like a canary. Not just taking in, but _listening_. Making a face like she was doing math in her head.

"Mr. Krycek," she says.

"What do you want?" he asks her reflection.

She comes up closer behind him, quiet taps on the tiled floor. Very close, right up to his shoulder. Knows better than to think they aren't being surveilled.

"You," she says.

He smirks. "Is that a proposition?"

Her warm breath in his ear: "A business offer."

 

[because it is my heart]

Under the oil, her heart was the only thing she could hear.

Her dreams were deaf and blind, overwhelmed by horror that wasn't hers. It was slick and cold and powerful, like a thin layer of ice water just under her skin. It boiled. It wanted to get _out_. When they took it out of her, it poured out like coming up out of the ocean. It left her gasping like a fish, air hissing and roaring in her ears. Afterwards, she always felt like her lungs were empty.

The first time she dreamed of Alex, she thought the oil gave a little twinge of recognition.

When she looks back on the day she got out, she remembers it wrong. She's good at misinformation, and now she feeds it to herself. It's subtle. She knows he didn't save her — she doesn't try to deny that — but she thinks of his face showing a little less rage, a little less revulsion.

"Krycek," Jeffrey breathed. "I'm trying to get out of here."

She tells herself Alex paused. She thinks of his eyes — the soft wolf, the hunter in deep forest. He takes a breath. Chapped lips. He takes a step forward, and places his hand on her chest. The paper-cloth of the medical gown.

She can feel Jeffrey's confusion and jealousy blazing to her right, burning her right arm, and she can feel the danger all around — they're coming.

Alex keeps his eyes on hers, and feels her heart.

Only after that does he turn to run.


End file.
